Dark Universe Page 12

  "Did it have anything to do with the--eyes?"

  Tap-tap-tap…

  He had returned to his thumping, burying bitter recollections and haunting thoughts under a rock pile of habit and mental detachment.

  Leaving Kind Survivoress' world now was out of the question-not with the Forever Man's senile memory offering the hope of opening new passageways in Jared's search for Light. Yet, he couldn't tell Della why he had to extend their stay. So he simply pretended he was still physically unfit for immediate travel.

  Apparently satisfied with this explanation for his postponement of their attempt to reach the Zivver World, Della grudgingly settled down to await his complete recovery.

  That her original distrust of Leah had been an impulsive, passing thing was manifest in the subsequent lessening of tension between the two women. At one point, she even told Jared she might have been wrong in her first impression of Leah and Ethan. Why, it wasn't at all as she had initially assumed, she confessed. And Ethan, despite his handicap, wasn't the awkward, clumsy lout she had imagined him to be-not in the least.

  Tactfully, Leah refrained from mind-to-mind contact with Jared and Ethan while they were in the girl's presence. To the effect that Della either forgot the woman's ability or gave it little thought.

  Leah, too, had adjustments to make. Although she treated Della hospitably, Jared could always sense her misgiving over not being able to listen to the Zivver girl's mind.

  These developments Jared traced with interest while he waited for the Forever Man to abandon his solitude and seek company once more. Light! What he might learn from that ageless one!

  During the fifth period after their arrival, Della was splashing in the river with Ethan while Jared was sharpening his spear points on a coarse rock when Leah's thoughts came to him:

  "Please forget about the Zivver World, Jared."

  "You know my mind's made up."

  "Then you'll have to change it. The passages are full of monsters."

  "How do you know? You told me you were afraid to listen to their minds."

  "But I’ve listened to other minds-in the two Levels."

  "And what did you hear?"

  "Terror and panic and queer impressions I can't understand. There are monsters all over. And the people are running and hiding and creeping back to their recesses, only to flee again later on."

  "Are there monsters near this world?"

  "I don't think so-not yet anyway."

  This posed another complication, Jared realized. Starting out for the Zivver World might not be a matter of leisure choice. It might well be that he should leave as quickly as possible.

  "No, Jared. Don't go-please!"

  And he detected more than selfless concern for his welfare. Lying at the base of Leah's thoughts were desperate pangs of loneliness, laced with the fear of having her simple, forlorn world cast back into the terrible solitude that had existed before he and Della arrived.

  But he had made up his mind and he regretted only not having had the chance for a second talk with the Forever Man.

  Just then, however, the latter's tapping came to an abrupt halt.

  Jared raced across the world this time.

  And, as he passed the river, Della quit splashing to ask: "Where are you running?"

  "To hear the Forever Man. Afterward we'll be on our way."

  Perching on the ledge, Jared asked anxiously, "Can we talk now?"

  "Go away," the Forever Man groaned in protest. "You only make me remember. I don't want to remember."

  "But compost! I'm hunting for Light!" You can help me!"

  Only the rasps of the other's labored breathing filed the world.

  "Try to remember about Light!" Jared pleaded. "Did it have anything to do with-the eyes?"

  "I-don't know. It seems I can remember something about brightness and-I can't imagine what else."

  "Brightness? What's that?"

  "Something like-a loud noise, a sharp taste, a hard punch maybe."

  Jared heard the uncertainty on the Forever Man's face. Here was someone who might even tell him what he was searching for. But the man spoke only in riddles which were no clearer than the obscure legends themselves.

  He tried to pace off his frustration in front of the nodding skeleton. Right before him might be the entire answer to how Light might benefit man, how it could touch all things at once and bring instant, inconceivably refined impressions of everything. If only the curtain of forgetfulness could be pierced!

  He struck out in another direction: "What about Darkness? Do you know anything about that?"

  And he heard the other shudder.

  "Darkness?" the Forever Man repeated, hesitancy and sudden fear hanging on the word. "I-oh, God!"

  "What's the matter?"

  The man was trembling violently now. His wry face was a grotesque mask of terror.

  Jared had never heard such fright before. The other's heartbeat had doubled and his pulse was like a wounded soubat's thrashing. Each shallow, erratic breath seemed as though it would be his last. He tried to rise, but fell back onto the ledge, burying his face in his hands.

  "Oh, God! The Darkness! The awful Darkness! Now I remember. It's all around us!"

  Confounded, Jared backed off.

  But the recluse grabbed his wrist and, with the strength of desperation, pulled him forward. Then his anguished cries shrilled through the world and spilled out into the passageway:

  "Feel it pressing in? Horrible, black, evil Darkness! Oh, God, I didn't want to remember! But you made me!"

  Jared listened alertly, fearfully about him. Was the Forever Man sensing Darkness-now? Or was he just remembering it? But no, he had said it was "all around us," hadn't he?

  Uneasily, Jared retreated and left his host fighting terror and sobbing, "Can't you feel it? Don't you see it? God, God, get me out of here!"

  But Jared felt nothing except the cool touch of the air. Yet he was afraid. It was as though he had absorbed some of the Forever Man's strange fear.

  Was Darkness something you felt or perhaps seed- rather, saw? But if you could see it, that meant you could do the same thing to Darkness that the Guardian believed could be done to Light Almighty. But-what?

  For a moment Jared was desperately afraid of an indefinite menace he could neither hear, nor feel, nor smell. It was an evil, uncanny sensation-a smothering, a silence that wasn't soundlessness at all but something both alien and akin to it at the same time.

  When he reached Della she was with Leah and Ethan. Nothing was said. It was as though a bit of the incomprehensible terror had spread to all of them.

  Della had already packed some food in her carrying case and Leah, resigned to his decision, had gotten his spears for him.

  The silence, uncomfortable and grave, persisted as they all walked to the exit. No good-bys were offered.

  A few paces down the corridor Jared turned and promised, "I'll be bank." Casually letting his spears strike the wail, he sounded out the way and pushed on.

  The somber world of Kind Survivoress and Little Listener and the unbelievable Forever Man slipped softly back into the immaterial depths of memory. And Jared felt a sense of poignant loss as he realized that recollections were fed by the same stuff of which dreams were made and that the only proof he would ever have of the existence of Leah's world would be in the echoes of his reflections.

  Chapter Eleven

  Throughout most of the travel period Della tagged silently along. That she was troubled with a restive hesitancy was evident in the worrisome expression Jared could hear on her face. Was she anxious over something he had said or done? Light knew he had already given plenty of cause for misgiving.

  Since leaving Leah's world, though, he had devised an artful echo-producing system which he felt certain had escaped Della's suspicion. It consisted principally of filling the corridors with one whistled tune after another.

  Eventually, the passageway pinched in on them and there was a stretch through which they had
to crawl. On the other side, he rose and thudded his spear against the ground.

  "Now we can breathe easier."

  "Why?" she drew up beside him.

  "Our rear's protected against soubats. They can't get through a tunnel that small."

  She was silent momentarily. "Jared-"

  Here came the question he knew she had been putting off. But he decided to forestall it. "There's a big passage up ahead."

  "Yes, I ziv it. Jared, I-"

  "And the air is heavy with the scent of Zivvers." He skirted a narrow chasm whose outline was carried on his reflected words.

  "It is?" She pushed ahead eagerly. "Maybe we're close to their world!"

  They reached the intersection and he stood there trying to determine whether they should go to the right or left. Then he tensed, instinctively gripping his spears. Mingled with the Zivver scent was a hidden, evil smell that fouled the air-an unmistakable fetor.

  "Della," he whispered, "monsters have just been this way."

  But she didn't hear him. Enthused, she had already strode off along the right-hand branch of the corridor. Even now he could hear her rounding the bend a short way off.

  Abruptly there was the grating sound of a rock slide, punctuated by a scream.

  With the corridor's composite frozen in his memory by the shrill reflections, he raced toward the great, gaping hole that had swallowed the girl's terrified outcry.

  Reaching the area of loose rock, he snapped his fingers to gain an impression of the pit's mouth. There was a solidly embedded boulder rearing up out of the rubble right next to the rim. He laid his spears down and one of them slid away, plunging over the edge and striking the wall repeatedly as it plummeted into the depth. The clatter persisted until the sound lost itself in remote silence.

  Casting the other lance back onto solid ground, he frantically shouted, "Della!"

  She answered in a terrified whisper, "I'm down here-on a ledge."

  He thanked Light that her voice came from nearby and that there might be a chance of saving her.

  Securing a grip on the boulder, he swung himself out over the chasm and snapped his fingers once more. Reflections of the sound told him she was huddled on a shelf close to the surface.

  His extended hand touched hers and he gripped her wrist, lifting her out of the hold and shoving her past the area of loose rock onto firm ground.

  They backed away from the pit and a final rock rolled off the incline, chattering down into the abyss. Echoes of the sharp sounds fetched the impression of the girl's calm melting away.

  He let her cry for a while, then took hold of her arms and drew her erect. The sound of his breathing reflected against her face and he listened to the manner in which exposed eyes dominated her other features. He could almost feel their sharp, intense fixedness and, momentarily, he thought he might be on the verge of guessing the nature of zivving.

  "It was just like what happened to my mother and father!" She nodded back toward the abyss. "It's like an omen-as if something were telling us we can take up where they left off!"

  Her hands pressed down on his shoulders and, remembering the firm softness of her body against his in that other corridor, he drew her close and kissed her. The girl's response was eager at first, but quickly faded off into a perceptible coolness.

  He retrieved his spear. "All right, Della. What is it?"

  She wasted no time framing the question she had held back:

  "What's all this about hunting for-Light? I heard you shouting at the Forever Man, asking him about Darkness too. And it scared the wits out of him."

  "It's simple." He shrugged. "Like you heard me say, I'm hunting for Darkness and Light."

  He sensed her perplexed frown as they started down the corridor. A manna shell thumped the side of her carrying case with each step and the sounds were sufficient to gather impressions of the passageway.

  "It's not something theological," he assured. "I just have an idea Darkness and Light aren't what we think they are."

  He could tell that her puzzlement had given way to mild doubt-a refusal to believe the explanation was that simple.

  "But that doesn't make sense," she protested. "Everybody knows who Light is, what Darkness is."

  "Then let's let it go at that and just say I have a different idea."

  She fell silent a moment. "I don't understand."

  "Don't let it bother you."

  "But the Forever Man-Darkness meant something different to him. He wasn't frightened over 'evil' being all around him. He was scared of something else, wasn't he?"

  "I suppose so."

  "What?"

  "I don't know."

  Again she said nothing for a long while, until they had passed several branch corridors. "Jared, does all this have anything to do with going to the Zivver World?"

  To a certain extent, he felt, he could be outspoken without laying his zivvership open to further suspicion. "In a way, yes. Just like zivving concerns the eyes, I believe Darkness and Light are in some way connected with the eyes too. And-"

  "And you think you can find out more about them in the Zivver World?"

  "That's right." He led her along a sweeping curve.

  "Is that the only reason you're going there?"

  "No. Like you, I'm also a Zivver; that's where I belong."

  He heard the girl's sudden relief-the relaxation of her tenseness, the quietening of her heartbeat. His candor had evidently allayed her misgiving and now she was ready to shrug off his quest as a whim that posed no particular threat to her interests.

  She eased her hand into his and they continued on around the bend. But he pulled up sharply as be caught the scent of monsters ahead. At the same time he shrank away from the left wall. For, even as he listened to its featureless surface, an indiscernible patch of silent echoes had begun playing against the moist stone.

  This time he was almost prepared for the uncanny sensation. Experimentally, he closed his eyes and was instantly no longer aware of the dancing sound. He opened them again and the noiseless reflections returned immediately-like the soft touch of a shouted whisper spreading itself thin against a smooth rock surface.

  "The monsters are coming!" Della warned. "I ziv their impressions-against that wall!"

  He half-faced her. "You ziv them?"

  "It's almost like zivving. Jared, let's get away from here!"

  He only stood there concentrating on the weird, soundless noise that flowed back and forth against the wall, never reaching his ears but making his eyes feel as though someone had thrown boiling water into them. She had said she zivved the impressions. Did that mean zivving was something like what was happening to him now?

  Then he listened to the purely audible impressions that were coming from around the bend. There was only one monster approaching. "You go back and wait in the first side corridor."

  "No, Jared. You can't-"

  But he propelled her down the passage and eased into a niche in the wall. When he heard there wouldn't be enough room to draw his spear, he laid it on the ground. Then he closed his eyes, blocking off the distracting impressions the monster was hurling.

  The creature had reached the bend and Jared could hear it hugging the near wall. He pressed farther into the recess.

  The thing's awful, alien smell was overpowering in its nearness now. And clearly audible, too, were the numerous folds of flesh-if that's what they were-fluttering about its body. If the breathing and heartbeat were of the same intensity and frequency as the average person's, then it must be drawing even with his hiding place just about-now.

  Lunging into the corridor, he drove his fist into what he judged to be the creature's midsection.

  Air exploded from the monster's lungs as it fell forward against him. Bracing himself against what he had expected to be a slimy touch, he pounded another fist into its face.

  Anxiously, he snapped his eyes open as he heard the monster collapse on the ground. He had half-expected there would be no more strange, sound
less noise spreading out from the thing now that it was unconscious. And there wasn't.

  Kneeling, he sent his hands out reluctantly to explore the creature. And he discovered there were no folds of flesh festooning its body. Rather, its arms, legs, torso were all covered by loosely fitting cloth of a texture even finer than the piece he had found at the entrance to the Lower Level. No wonder he had received the impression of sagging hide! Who ever heard of chestcloths or loincloths that didn't fit skintight?

  His hands groped upward and encountered a duplicate of the rougher cloth he had buried in the corridor outside his world. It was drawn taut over the monster's face and held there by four ribbons tied behind its head.

  He snatched the cloth away and ran his fingers over-a normal human face! It was much like a woman's or child's, smooth and completely hairless. But the cast of the features was masculine.

  The monster was human!

  Jared rose and his foot met a hard object. Before touching it, he bent and snapped his fingers several times. And he had no difficulty recognizing the thing. It was identical to the tubular devices left behind by the monsters in both the Upper and Lower Level.

  The creature stirred and Jared dropped the object, diving for his spear.

  Just then Della came sprinting down the corridor. "More monsters-coming from the other way!"

  Listening around the bend, he could hear the sounds of their approach. And he was aware of the play of their mysterious mute noises along the right wall of the corridor.

  He seized the girl's hand and raced on up the passage, letting his spear thump the ground so it would produce sounding impulses.

  From ahead he heard the composite of a smaller branch passage. He slowed and headed cautiously into it.

  "Let's go this way awhile," he suggested. "I think it'll be safer."

  "Is the Zivver scent strong in this passage too?"

  "No. But we'll pick it up again. These smaller tunnels usually curve back."

  "Oh, well," she said, comforting herself, "at least we shouldn't be bothered by monsters for a while."

  "Those aren't monsters." He surmised that, like hearing, zivving impressions weren't refined enough to distinguish between loose cloth and flesh. "They are humans."